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The owner of a Windsor, Ont., waxing salon, who was ordered to pay $35,000 to a transgender woman who claimed she was discriminated against while seeking a leg waxing, has appealed the human rights tribunal’s ruling.
The incident occurred in 2018, but the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario did not issue its ruling against Mad Wax Windsor Inc. until late May 2024. Jason Carruthers, the owner of the salon, filed an application for judicial review to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on June 18, seeking to have the decision of tribunal vice-chair Karen Dawson quashed.
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The initial human-rights complaint, filed in April 2018, alleged that Carruthers had repeatedly misgendered the Indigenous transgender woman seeking a leg waxing — referred to in court documents as A.B. — and referred to her as having “male body parts.”
Carruthers, in his court filing, denies having misgendered A.B. and says he believed that A.B. was seeking a genital wax, not a leg wax, which Mad Wax did not offer.
“(A.B.) testified that (Carruthers) told her he had no one on staff who would be comfortable providing services to ‘someone like you,’” the tribunal decision states.
The owner disputed this, recalling that he had said he “did not have anyone on staff at that time who could provide male waxing services.” The court filing also says that Carruthers offered A.B. an alternative service — though it is not identified — and the tribunal decision makes no mention of that fact.
A.B., according to the tribunal decision, “never told (Carruthers) she had male genitalia.” However, the court filing by Carruthers’ lawyer says that “A.B. had raised the issue of genitalia first, by suggesting that ‘some women have penises.’”
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“Any questions or comments regarding A.B.’s genitalia were influenced by this comment,” the filing argues.
The legal filing also argues that Carruthers was clearly unsure about which service A.B. was seeking “and A.B. took no action to correct” this misunderstanding.
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In the tribunal hearing, Carruthers said that A.B. had threatened a “media circus” and “trouble with the tribunal.” A.B. denied making such threats, and the tribunal agreed. The court filing also says Carruthers believed A.B. had made such threats, and when she posted a Facebook video related to the conversation, he believed she was now following through on those threats, which led him to issue a press release to local media, leading to news reports about the controversy.
In awarding the $35,000 in damages, Dawson found that Carruthers’s actions “struck at the core of (A.B.’s) identity and in a very public way.”
In the court filing, Carruthers’s lawyer says A.B. “failed to provide any documentary evidence to support the harm she allegedly suffered,” including a suicide attempt, increased substance use, the loss of her job and marriage, and attendance to counselling and addictions groups.
The court filing argues that if the tribunal meant to compensate A.B. for the discrimination she experienced, she ought to have provided evidence of hardship.
A.B.’s lawyer did not respond to National Post’s request for comment.
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